Santa Claus Is a Stinker

Santa Claus Is a Stinker (Le père Noël est une ordure, 1982) is a pitch-black French comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Jean-Marie Poiré, it drops two hapless suicide-hotline volunteers into the worst Christmas Eve shift imaginable.

Pierre and Thérèse are supposed to be answering desperate callers. Instead, the desperate ones walk straight through their door. A pregnant, weepy mess named Josette. Her violent boyfriend Félix, who moonlights as a street-corner Santa. A clumsy cross-dressing neighbor. Each new arrival piles on more disaster until the tiny office racks up brawls, a corpse or two, and gloriously indecent chaos.

This is the calling card of the Le Splendid troupe — Thierry Lhermitte, Gérard Jugnot, Christian Clavier, Anémone — who later went on to French box-office royalty. It flopped on release, then became endlessly quoted holiday television, the kind of cruel, anarchic farce that France reruns every December. If your taste runs to comedy with no brakes and no manners, it delivers. Stream Santa Claus Is a Stinker (1982) online on iFILM.